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Bergdorf Boys

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When Neal Tate, a just-out-of-rehab NYC party columnist, falls for Dewalt, a Harlem drug dealer he meets at a gay bathhouse, he discovers that navigating an honest relationship is a lot more difficult than chasing down the perfect pair of skinny jeans.

Neal finds support from his fashion-loving Rovvy, a blond boy-toy married to Andres Palamos, the shady millionaire owner of Pop magazine where Neal works; Nick, “It-boy” style writer for the New York Times whose fab job and rich hubby are smothering his desires to design; and Annie, straight-girl art director at Pop who gives Neal’s life a smidge of balance.

The success of Neal’s "Bergdorf Boy" column and his growing love for Dewalt lead him to question his capacity for intimacy and his obsessive commitment to both the latest trend and anonymous sex, and to wonder if a monogamous gay marriage could be in the cards.

These Bergdorf boys hop from Madison Avenue shopping sprees to Fire Island photo shoots, dipping their manicured toes into the dizzy underside of the gay nightlife scene hunting for lust, love, and designer must-haves.

248 pages, Paperback

First published December 3, 2011

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About the author

Scott Alexander Hess

10 books59 followers
Scott Alexander Hess is the author of five novels, including Skyscraper, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and The Butcher’s Sons, which was named a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2015. His writing has appeared in HuffPost, Genre Magazine, The Fix, Thema Literary Review, and elsewhere. Hess co-wrote "Tom in America," an award-winning short film, starring Sally Kirkland and Burt Young. He teaches fiction writing at Gotham Writers Workshop and curates Hot Lit, an LGBTQ+ themed monthly newsletter. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Hess lives in New York City with his husband.

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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Author 13 books34 followers
June 11, 2012
This was a unique book; although it does have a romance arc, it's really much more literary gay fiction. The prose style is gorgeous. It's marked by the complete absence of cliches, realistic dialogue, lyrical descriptive details and the ability to describe intense emotion without sentimentality. There's not a lot of m/m romance which can say the same. Hey, I love the genre too, but it's nice to take a little vacation from it.

One of the highest marks I can give this book is in regards to the description of clothes. There are so many writers who cannot describe clothing to save their life, yet attempt it anyway, and clothing descriptions can kill a story faster than a secret baby. Clothes and fashion are integral to Bergdorf Boys, and clothing is often described but never dully and never for too long. I have zero interest in that type of fashion but the clothing description still engaged me fully! (If you're an AbFab fan, this book is for you; the humor is wonderfully snappy).

The portrayal of the NYC gay fashion world was sociologically awesome. Back in the 90s I lived in NYC and was sort of tangentially involved, and Neal, the protagonist of Bergdorf Boys, reminds me strongly of a guy I used to work with. I was dirt broke but could live vicariously through my friend, who'd stagger into work bleary-eyed with sordid stories of the night before about what celebrity he did a bunch of coke with in what bathroom. After a while I soon realized that my friend was actually very depressed and felt out of his depth; he'd come from a sheltered existence in rural NJ and was doing all this partying as much out of obligation and insecurity as true desire.

Bergdorf Boys captures this weary moment in life with crystal purity. Neal is trying to figure out who he is, what he wants… and how much of who he is and what he wants are attributable to really fucked-up materialistic social messages. He's a neurotically self-aware man in crisis mode, and that mode tells us a lot about the society he lives in. He's an alcoholic in recovery and also flirting with the idea that he's a sex addict

He meets his boyfriend Dewalt during a bathhouse sex session, strikes up an instant connection and falls into a whirlwind romance. This is where the book gets really ambitious, because the class and race differences between Neal and Dewalt are HUGE and not papered over in any way whatsoever. Neal is white and from a well-off family in small-town Missouri. Dewalt lives in Harlem, is a construction worker with a prison record, has gold teeth and a thug aesthetic. Neal has absorbed a level of background subconscious racism that seems very realistic, a sort of baselevel terror of black people that he has to work to overcome whenever he's in Dewalt's environment.

Neal's relationship with Dewalt is great for him. Neal is extremely promiscuous but not at all happy being that way; having a monogamous relationship has become a looming goal, a measure of adequacy. He writes about it in his column, Bergdorf Boy, and gay marriage also becomes a very strong theme toward the end of the book (I don't think the book itself was slut-shaming to men who are promiscuous and happy about it, but it does end up having a lot of negative messages about casual sex filtered through Neal's deep POV).

I became very uneasy with the interracial dynamic at several points. I felt like I was intended to, but by the end of the book, I'm not happy I spent so much time in Neal's head. One reason is that Dewalt doesn't seem to have much narrative life outside of being someone who loves Neal and is loved by Neal. He functions a bit as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl; his thug-life masculinity, contrasted with the femininity of Neal's milieu (men regularly calling each other bitches, referring to each other with feminine pronouns, importance of female celebrities) is stark and magical… just like the femininity of the MPDG as set against the heterosexual protagonist's mundanely masculine milieu. And like the MPDG, he brings chaos and spontaneity into Neal's life. Spontaneousness, in fact, is presented as his key character trait. An uncharitable examination of Dewalt's presence in the narrative would be that he's 50% MPDG 50% Magical Negro.

My problems in that area would have been greatly improved if there were other black people in the narrative that were of diverse social classes, as indeed there are in New York City! But there really weren't any. I can certainly believe that the upper-class fashion world Neal lives in is very segregated and racist, but I don't think it's quite that segregated.

Misgivings aside, I have to give a lot of respect to the book for dealing with racism in gay settings head-on, and for daring to make Neal deeply unsympathetic at some points. Like the time he freaks out and screams the n-word. Yeah, he goes there. I boggled. No, this is not something you would see in an interracial romance designed specifically as a romance.

In terms of the romance arc, I won't give away the ending, but I do have an issue with the way the class differences between Neal and Dewalt didn't seem to be given the same weight as other class differences. This is a pretty major theme in Bergdorf Boys, how income differences in partnerships mess with love, and how gay relationships can be challenging to negotiate in the absence of clear gender roles. Hazy gender roles are still crucial: does money stand in for masculinity? That's a question the book seriously poses in several secondary relationships.

I loved that Neal's psychology was so complicated, but like I said before, I felt frustrated spending so much time in his head. He's an incredibly privileged white dude, had a happy (and loaded) family, most of his angst comes from trying to live up to an insane standard only attainable by .000001% of the world's population… so my investment in his journey was sharply limited at certain points.

I strongly recommend this book if you are interested in complicated personal-crisis narratives where characters aren't fully sympathetic. I was very impressed with Bergdorf Boys overall.

Profile Image for Janie.
1,702 reviews2 followers
April 29, 2013
This was by far one of the best books I've ever read. I fell in love with Dewalt and Neal. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys male/male romance.
Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads Contest.
Profile Image for Yoshi.
206 reviews3 followers
August 12, 2012
What can I say? It's a strange read......

**with some spoilers**

Neal reminds me of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. Both a writer of a column and addicted to
high end fashion. I always wonder where did the money come from, how can Carrie afforded all the
big names clothes/shoes/bags just being a column writer. It's the same with Neal.

The pairing was weird.... not because Dewalt was black and have gold teeth :-)
Everything between the two men was a real contradiction. I can't see how the attraction came from, beside the sex. Maybe just because both men had a shitty past and longed for contact with someone. OMG, Neal was so out of place during the ribs dinner with Dewalt's friends. A Paul Smith pullover in a shitty greasy ribs restaurant?? Are you kidding me? Just like Carrie in her Manolo Blahnik walking through China town with dirty water on the pavement.

Ok, it's Neal's self discovery. I got it.
Strangely, I am not so sure if I am happy with the supposed to be happy ending.
Giving the fact that they were from so different background, the author failed to tell us how the men adjusted to each other's life before the wedding. Maybe I am a demanding reader and want everything to be prefect and romantic.

Neal's parents sounded open to me, I think they even supported Neal in finding a man, and they were not against Dewalt for all I have read. But, they didn't attend the wedding...strange.

I give it a 2*, which means it's ok according to GR. I cannot say I like it (3*) but I also cannot say I don't like it.
Profile Image for Joyfully Reviewed.
510 reviews252 followers
February 24, 2012
Midwestern boy Neal Tate explored his gay sexuality to the absolute ultimate when he landed in New York City. Neal dove into the lifestyle so well that he ended up in rehab with an alcohol and drug addiction.

Navigating life without the crutch of liquor, in particular, is a whole new world for Neal. With the help of his closest friend Rovvie he’s got a job writing a column he titles ‘Bergdorf Boys’ for Pop magazine. He’s also responsible for some of their fashion layout as an editor.

The pressures of the magazine strain Neal’s sobriety, but that’s nothing compared to his budding relationship with Dewalt, a man from the cruel side of Harlem. The two men are lifestyles and life experiences apart, yet something special sparks between them. The cards are certainly stacked against them, except Neal knows that he has to try and go where his sober heart leads him.

Bergdorf Boys is an incredibly realistic and intimate look at the mean streets of life for gays in the big city. Raw and gritty language peppered with detailed locale adds to the storyline. There is a very large cast of characters and loads of promiscuous sex, as well as a few hardcore moments too. Provocative and intense, Bergdorf Boys is an absorbing look at the not so pretty side of life out of a Midwestern closet.

Reviewed by Lisa
For Joyfully Reviewed
Author 11 books22 followers
April 22, 2012
Brilliant. Scott is one of the few writers who write with the honesty and clarity of a Jean Genet and the style of a Hollinghurst.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews

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